Avnet boss still optimistic about recovery

As one of the first to predict that things would improve from the third quarter of this year Roy
Vallee, CEO of Avnet, is holding to his optimistic views in the
face of continued economic pressure.

Speaking at the Global Technology Distribution Council
meeting in London yesterday Vallee described himself as a "card carrying optimist" and said that he
believed that things were improving in the US.

"I am reasonably optimistic there will be an improvement in the summer quarter," he said.

"Europe is lagging behind the US but as the US should take credit in leading the world into
recession it should play a role in leading the world back out," he said.

He said that he believed that it was currently in the bottoming process "so sub sequential
improvement should be coming soon".

Vallee said in the autumn of last year that he saw things bottoming out then starting to improve
from the middle of 2009, but speaking yesterday he qualified his view of recovery warning that it
would be gradual.

"It's probably going to be more gradual than in the past [coming out of recession]," he added
that a lot of money had to be paid back by banks and governments in the next few years.

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